Tokyo brought to standstill by quake

TOKYO - Japan's huge earthquake brought super-modern Tokyo to astandstill Friday, paralyzing trains that normally run likeclockwork and stranding hordes of commuters carrying mobile phonesrendered largely useless by widespread outages.

The magnitude-8.9 quake off Japan's northeastern coast shookbuildings in the capital, left millions of homes across Japanwithout electricity, shut down the mobile phone network and severelydisrupted landline telephone service. It brought Tokyo's trainsystem to a halt, choking a daily commuter flow of more than 10million people.

"This is the kind of earthquake that hits once every 100 years,"said restaurant worker Akira Tanaka, 54.

He gave up waiting for trains to resume and decided - for hisfirst time ever - to set off on foot for his home 12 miles (20kilometers) north of the capital. "I've been walking an hour and 10minutes, still have about three hours to go," he said.

Tokyo prides itself on being an orderly, technologically savvy,even futuristic city. Residents usually can rely on a huge, criss-crossing network of train and subway lines, but authorities wereforced to scan the entire web for quake damage and canceled nearlyall train service for the day.

Tens of thousands of people milled at train stations and hunkereddown at 24-hour cafes and hotels.

Mobile phone lines were crammed, preventing nearly all calls andtext messages. Calls to northeastern Japan, where a 23-foot (7-meter) tsunami washed ashore after the quake, generally failed to gothrough, with a recording saying the area's lines were busy.

Unable to rely on mobile phones, lines of people formed atTokyo's normally vacant public phone booths dotting the city.

Osamu Akiya, 46, was working in Tokyo at his office in a tradingcompany when the quake hit. It sent bookshelves and computerscrashing to the floor, and cracks appeared in the walls.

"I've been through many earthquakes, but I've never felt anythinglike this," he said.

Japan's top telecommunications company Nippon Telegraph andTelephone Corp. set up an emergency phone line and a specialInternet site for people to leave messages for family and friends.

Up to 90 percent of calls were being restricted to preventtelecom equipment from being overloaded, NTT spokeswoman Mai Kariyasaid. The company was checking on damage to towers and cables, anddetails were not immediately available.

Tokyo commuter trains and subways, as well as the superfastbullet trains, all shut down, according to East Japan Railway Co. Ahandful of subway lines resumed service, but only after six hours.

Normally when Tokyo trains suffer rare problems, they are runningagain within an hour. But the railway company announced that nearlyall service would not resume for the rest of the day, sending crowdsthat were milling at train stations pouring into the streets.

The Tokyo suburb of Yokohama offered the community's main concerthall as an emergency place to stay overnight, and planned to offerblankets and other amenities, Yokohama Arena official HideharuTerada said.

"There has never been a big earthquake like this, when all therailways stopped and so this is a first for us," Terada said."People are trickling in. They are all calm."

In downtown Tokyo, Tomoko Suzuki and her elderly mother stood ata crowded corner, unable to get to their 29th-floor condominiumbecause the elevator wasn't working. They unsuccessfully tried tohail a taxi to a relative's house and couldn't find a hotel room.

"We are so cold," said Suzuki. "We really don't know what todo."___Associated Press writers Yuri Kageyama and Tomoko A. Hosakacontributed to this report.